The present invention relates to improvements in apparatus for collating and otherwise manipulating sheet material articles, particularly sections of newspapers or the like. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in so-called stuffing apparatus which can be used for assembly of newspapers in openable pockets which are transported past several hoppers, preferably bottom-feed hoppers each of which can discharge into successive pockets a different sheet material article.
In presently known newspaper stuffing apparatus, each pocket which contains an assembled newspaper is opened at a discharging station so that the newspaper can descend by gravity, e.g., onto a conveyor which delivers it to a stacker or to another processing unit. Such mode of evacuating the contents of pockets is satisfactory as long as the speed of the pockets (which normally travel along an endles path) does not exceed a predetermined value. Once the predetermined speed is exceeded, the interval of time which elapses for gravitational descent of an assembled newspaper from the pocket at the evacuating station is too long, i.e., the speed of the entire apparatus must be reduced for the sole purpose of insuring complete evacuation of assembled newspapers at the evacuating station. Otherwise stated, the capacity of stuffing apparatus is not utilized to a maximum degree because the inertia of assembled newspapers is too high, i.e., it takes too long to accelerate an assembled newspaper from zero speed to that speed at which the newspaper moves during the last stage of its evacuation from the respective pocket.